Last updated: February 6, 2025
Person
Florence Bayard Hilles
Harris & Ewing, W. (ca. 1916) Florence Bayard Hilles. United States Delaware, ca. 1916. [Photograph]
Quick Facts
Significance:
Suffragist
Place of Birth:
Delaware
Date of Birth:
1865
Date of Death:
1954
Place of Burial:
Wilmington, Delaware
Cemetery Name:
Old Swedes Church
In September 1913, when she was 47 years old, Florence Bayard Hilles went to the Delaware State Fair to exhibit her prize show dogs. Her life would never be the same. On that day, she discovered her passion and purpose - gaining the right to vote for women.
Florence Bayard was born in Delaware in 1865, to a prominent family with a dynasty in politics. Five of her male relatives served as US Senators, including her father and grandfather. Florence received the extensive education and advantages of her social class, including living in England and traveling in Europe while her father was US Ambassador to Great Britain. In 1878 she married William S. Hilles, a lawyer. As a lawyer, his profession was to uphold the U.S. Constitution and protect people’s rights as outlined in the document. As a female, Florence could not vote, and she could not pursue a career in politics like her male relatives.
At that state fair in 1913, Florence Bayard Hilles heard fellow Delawarean Mabel Vernon speak about voting rights for women at the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association’s tent. Hilles immediately signed a card stating “I believe in women suffrage” and put all her energy into voting rights advocacy.
In 1914, Hilles was elected chairperson for a committee in the Delaware Congressional Union (CU) for Woman Suffrage, which became the National Women’s Party in 1917. One of several suffragist groups, the CU advocated assertive and highly visible actions to call attention to voting rights, and Hiles was a key leader in public advocacy, speeches, protest marches and parades. In 1915, Hilles toured many small towns in Delaware in her gaily decorated car, the “Votes for Women Flyer”, to advocate for women’s suffrage. In 1916, she was part of a group that smuggled a suffrage banner into Congress and then unfurled it during a speech by President Woodrow Wilson. The banner read, “Mr. President, What Will You Do for Woman Suffrage?”. On March 4, 1917, as part of the Silent Sentinel group of women, Hilles began picketing the White House for women’s voting rights. The protests continued for four months, until on July 14, 1917 Hilles was arrested with 15 other women. At that time, the US was fighting in World War I in Europe, “to make the world safe for democracy”. At her trial, Hilles highlighted this inconsistency, saying “For generations the men of my family have given their services to their country. For myself, my training from childhood has been with a father who believed in democracy and who belonged to the Democratic Party. By inheritance and connection, I am a Democrat, and to a Democratic President I went with my appeal. What a spectacle it must be to the thinking people of this country to see us urged to go to war for democracy in a foreign land, and to see women thrown into prison who plead for that same cause at home.”
However, the women protesters were convicted and sentenced to 60 days in the Occoquan Workhouse (prison) in Virginia. In this incidence, President Woodrow Wilson received severely negative publicity from imprisoning the women, and he pardoned them after they had served three days. Nevertheless, women suffragists continued to be sentenced to prison at Occoquan Workhouse where they were forced to endure terrible conditions, and, when they protested using hunger strikes, they were subjected to force feeding.
Finally in 1919, through the tireless work of women suffragists and their allies, the Nineteenth Amendment, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex…” was passed by the US Congress. To become law, the amendment needed ratification by 36 states (75% of the 48 states at that time). By 1920, 35 states had ratified, so only one more was needed. In Delaware, Florence Bayard Hilles and others advocated continuously, hoping that this would be the deciding state. While the Delaware Senate voted to ratify on May 5, 1920, the Delaware House recessed without voting on June 2, giving a victory to anti-suffragists and a painful loss to women’s voting rights advocates. Undaunted, Hilles and other suffragists traveled to Tennessee, which became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, finally making women’s voting rights US law. Women voted in their first Presidential election in 1920 (Warren G. Harding was elected).
Florence Bayard Hilles continued to campaign for women’s rights until she died in 1954, including advocating for an Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution. She is buried at Old Swedes Church in Wilmington, as is her daughter, Katherine Hilles Callery.
Sources:
Boylan, Anne M., Votes for Delaware Women, University of Delaware Press, 2021.
Delaware Historical Society, Delaware Women’s Suffrage Timeline, https://archivesfiles.delaware.gov/womens-vote/Womens-Suffrage-Delaware-Timeline-10.10.19_min.pdf
Heitz, Madison, Cimino, Mia, Sharp, Jessica, Biographical Sketch of Florence Bayard Hilles; Alexander Street, https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1008342612Office of Women’s
Advancement & Advocacy, Florence Bayard Hilles, Delaware Department of Human Resources, https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/owaa/artwork/florence-bayard-hilles